Registered

My 15 week ~ ish kitty, Shadow bites my boyfrind and I really hard all of the time. We try to give her attention, but she'll just turn around and the bite the **** out of us. My hands look horrible with lots of scratches and open wounds. I inherited Shadow from a co-worker and so I don't know much about her background. I think she was a stray at some point...which probably has something to do with her behavior. I've tried many different methods of trying to get her to understand that biting and clawing hard are a no no no like making loud noises, using a spray bottle, yelling at her, and even locking her up. I don't know what else to do! :? Does anyone have any suggestions for us as far as getting her to bite a lil softer and not claw us to death. Thank u, Michele

Registered

Mouthing is an important part of a kittens development. It lets them learn how delicate are skin is. What you do as she is growing is allow her to mouth, but determine when she mouths to hard. I find that time outs works the best. You simply stop whatever you are doing and walk away from her for just 10 seconds whenever she bites harder then you can handle. It has been researched that any type of punishment (spray bottles etc) can often cause a whole bunch of new problem behavior with the side effects associated with it. Basically with a spray bottle you are teaching her to fear water. One side effect is that she will never like to bathe (the water association). As she gets older you can start to tolerate less and less biting until you don't tolerate it at all and you end all play when her mouth makes contact with you.